I may have misread this, but I swear I remember reading that the next Yaris would be a rebadged Mazda2 hatchback. Either way, if Toyota is making Mazda do ALL the work for this car, Mazda had better be bringing home a good chunk of the money made off each one and be getting a lot else from Toyota in exchange (hybrid tech? Access to the fountain of youth?). If not, this is just blatant exploitation of Mazda that no enthusiast should stand for.

I heard that too, but the current one will soldier on for the foreseeable future. And as for kickbacks, if we look at Subaru they get a huge chunk of their R&D dollars from Toyota and almost nothing for FR-S/GT86 sales. It's a revolving door. Mr. Toyoda is being very smart giving that money to outside companies and reaping benefits to drive competition within the company to win out.

"If you don’t intend to use the rear seats regularly, the Scion iA sits at the top of its class." I don't understand four door cars with useless backseats. 4 doors doesn't make it a family car; room in the back does. Small 4 door cars mean the B pillar is pushed too far forward so the driver has to negotiate it every time they get in.

The front end looks like how I would imagine Don Knotts would look like in a Cars movie. But anyways, the iA is a blast to drive it like you stole it, love Mazda six speeds, crisp shifting, smooth clutch, what is better at this price for driving enjoyment?

Wonder if Mazda though lets not do the Mazda 2 in the US because they will want the CX3 over there? Or did they think, lets make a deal with Toyota and let them carry the Mazda 2 to the US (though wonder at what point did Toyota "oh, by the way we plan to Scion badge it" in that negotiation)?

"It’s easy to be dismissive of a carmaker that doesn’t actually make its own cars, but it’s difficult to fault Scion for this particular move. The Scion iA is likely far better to drive than anything Toyota would have built to take its place."

That speaks volumes for the state of Toyota design and engineering today. With Toyota's financial resources, there is no excuse for Mazda being able to design a more competitive compact car. It's bad enough that they have to rely on Subaru and BMW to build their sports cars, but it's a sad thing when Toyota cannot build a decent compact sedan. Beyond sad, actually.

It's also exceedingly ironic, given that they made their inroads in the US by selling great, well-built small cars against domestics that couldn't build small cars very well at a time when they were needed. Now they can't even bother making one themselves period? Maybe they have become the New Old GM.

Every car maker co-operates with other manufacturers to some degree on various vehicles or technology, depending on strategic need. Mazda clearly wants to get more volume on its products, and Toyota wants to differentiate Scion without expending much effort.

Without expending much effort? How about virtually no effort? We're not talking about platform-sharing or a team co-development project here. This is a cut-and-paste grille job, and it's borderline shameful.

Toyota is the world's largest automaker. It wasn't long ago other manufacturers went to them for their expertise in designing and building small, efficient cars. Now it seems they just want to do the marketing, while others do the heavy lifting.